


the most merciful thing in the world

by Chrome



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, In The Dark Of Night | yoihorrorzine, Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian Monster(s), M/M, Monsters, Mystery, Near Death Experiences, Nightmares, One Shot, Poisoning, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 08:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20525348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome
Summary: The Old Ones sleep beneath the sea. Viktor Nikiforov dreams of them every night.And right now, Viktor Nikiforov is dying.---Originally written for the YOI Horror Zine.





	the most merciful thing in the world

**Author's Note:**

> Several people beta-read this fic, which was written almost a year ago, and I'm afraid I don't remember who anymore. But if you're reading this, I love you!
> 
> I was very honored to be a part of this zine with so many other remarkable creators! Thank you to everyone who supported this project.

_“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”_

_ -H.P. Lovecraft _

Viktor Nikiforov was already dying when he rang the doorbell of the brick house, his arms full of every dream he'd had since he was fifteen years old. He had tried not to crumple the pages, rolling and stacking them carefully, but by the time he had finished his hands were shaking too badly to avoid bending the edges. Still, he held them as gently as he could as he stood trembling on the porch.

Lilia Baranovskaya opened the door. “We’re in the middle of dinner,“ she began, before she saw his pallor, the darkening of the veins in his throat, the blood dripping from his nose.

“This is everything I have,” Viktor said. “Poison, I think, I—“

“Yuri!” she bellowed. “Here, now!”

Yuri was fifteen years old and disliked being told what to do, but when Lilia’s voice took on that particular tone, even he rushed to obey. His eyes widened when he caught sight of Viktor.

“Get Dr. Lee,” Lilia ordered. “Run.”

Yuri shot Viktor one more frightened glance and bolted out the door into the dusk. In the house beyond, Viktor could hear the scraping of silverware, of furniture, as people got up to see what the commotion was. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, caught between his exhaustion and social niceties and the flash of inhumanity in the man’s eyes that afternoon—

Lilia took him firmly by the elbow and led him inside. The shouting had brought Yakov into the hall as well, and Viktor could see how difficult it was for him to control his expression when they made eye contact.

“Here,” Lilia said. She took the papers from him and passed the bundle to Yakov. Relieved of his burden, he stumbled and had to catch hold of the wall to stay upright. With surprising strength, she half-led, half carried him to the sofa and set him on it. “How long has it been?”

“I haven’t eaten since the afternoon,” Viktor said. “It must have been hours. I’ve been dizzy since—three o’clock, maybe. I thought it would pass until the bleeding started. I saw him, though. His eyes, they went—dark. Like a sky without stars.” He shivered. “Do you have a pencil and paper?”

“No,” she said. “Keep still.”

“Please,” Viktor said. Blood dripped from his nose. He tried to find a handkerchief but couldn’t until Lilia took pity on him and handed him one. “It’s with me, the city, I close my eyes and I’m there—“

“Lie down.” Yakov returned, carrying a pillow and rags. “You’re shaking too badly to hold a pencil.”

That was true, but it didn’t get rid of the crawling itch inside Viktor, to exorcise his visions by drawing them. Most of his sketches ended up fragmented, half-finished, horrifying to look at even in their incompleteness. It had been luck—good or bad, they had never decided—that Viktor had laid a hand on a carved wood likeness of something unspeakable as a teenager wandering through a library archive. The visions of R’yleh—a corpse-city, sharply non-Euclidean, maddening to comprehend—had lived in his mind ever since.

He’d found his way to Yakov and Lilia that winter. Everyone who stumbled upon the truth eventually did, were they not driven mad—or murdered. When he had first set foot in the brick house, Yakov had walked him through the history of their order, a litany of brutal deaths of the dozens of men and women who had looked for the same secrets. They had meant to scare him away.

He’d handed over his sketchbook to reassure them that they couldn’t.

Through his spinning thoughts, Viktor realized it had been eleven years. Not bad, for someone who dreamed anew of things no human was meant to see every night. In a way, it was like coming full circle, handing over his drawings a final time, the door clicking shut behind him.

“Viktor,” Lilia said impatiently, and he realized she must have said something else.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and her expression softened. She gently pushed him back onto the pillows.

“Rest.”

“After the doctor comes,” he said. “May I have my sketchbook, please. His eyes, they felt...familiar, somehow...please. Let me draw...”

“After the doctor comes,” she agreed, and Viktor let his eyes flutter shut for a moment and then opened them again.

“Yuuri,” he said, grabbing her wrist before she could go. “Someone please get Yuuri.”

After that, he drifted in and out of consciousness, catching snippets of conversation. First, the doctor and Yakov, in low voices:

“There must be something—“

“No. Keep him comfortable.”

Dr. Lee gave him something to drink—thick, tasting of charcoal. Viktor gagged but swallowed, even knowing that it would not help. When the doctor left, he avoided their expressions, as though somehow if none of them spoke of his impending death, it would not come to pass.

One good thing came of the doctor’s visit: Yakov brought a pencil and sketchpad.  _ I really must be dying, _ Viktor thought, dryly amused.  _ Yakov giving in without a fight. _

He filled half a page with something that might have passed for a street in that city of nightmares, and then he let the pencil drop from his hand and drifted into sleep.

At some point, Christophe arrived; perhaps they spoke briefly, Christophe’s hand on his shoulder, but in the end he only remembered the conversation Christophe had with Lilia, to the left of the sofa as he lay still with his eyes shut.

“Even if he wakes, it might be nonsense. He told me to get Yuri, and of course he’s already here.”

“Yuuri?” Christophe asked. “He must mean Mr. Katsuki. Of the Katsuki Tailors.”

“That old man?” Lilia said. “They’ve been there as long as I can remember.”

“His son, I think. Or his grandson. He and Viktor—“ A moment of silence, and Viktor could imagine the gesture that filled the space.

“Go get him,” Lilia said. “The doctor said it will not be long.”

“He does not know about the Old Ones,” Christophe warned.

“We will say nothing, then,” Lilia said. “But Viktor ought to see him again.”

Viktor felt immeasurable gratitude for that; more than anything, he wanted to see Yuuri again. He had the sense he was forgetting something, though, something important, but his head ached and he let the thought slip through his fingers like the pencil had as he fell into sleep again.

\---

Yuuri knew that something had happened when someone banged on his door at half past eight in the evening. It was not unforgivably late, socially speaking, but well past dinnertime, and people rarely came to tailors for late-night emergencies.

He opened the door anyway. It could be his landlady, of course, but the feeling under his skin made him think it was something else, an old friend come calling. When he swung it open, however, it was a much newer friend standing breathless in the doorway.

“Mr. Giacometti,” Yuuri said. “To what do I owe—“

“Viktor is very sick,” Christophe said flatly. “Dr. Lee thinks he may not survive the night. He asked for you.”

Yuuri stared at him. “I saw him yesterday,” he said, numbly. It seemed unfathomably sudden, inexplicably fragile, to go from yesterday to—

God, that was life, wasn’t it. Fragile.

“I can’t explain here,” Christophe replied. “Come with me.”

Yuuri was in his shirtsleeves, planning to stay in for the rest of the evening. He methodically retrieved his jacket, his coat. He could not find a hat.

“No one will mind how you are dressed,” Christophe said kindly after watching him flail about for a moment. He caught Yuuri’s stricken expression and misinterpreted it. “No one will think less of you as a tailor for not having a hat in such a situation.”

“Of course,” Yuuri said after a moment, his profession the furthest possible thing from his mind. “How is he?”

“Ill,” Christophe said. A light drizzle was coming down. Yuuri hadn’t even glanced out the window and Christophe did not seem to have brought an umbrella, but he had a cab waiting in the street. Once they were inside, he hesitated, looking at Yuuri as the driver nudged the horse forward.

“I am not mistaken in saying you have slept beside Viktor, I think,” Christophe said, with his usual frankness.

Yuuri flushed. “In a manner of speaking.”

For once in his life, Christophe seemed to have no interest in teasing. “You know he has bad dreams.”

Sharing a bed with Viktor had given Yuuri a new meaning of the word  _ dream _ , something far more vicious and vivid than he had thought was encompassed in the liminal concept. In all the nights they had lain together, Yuuri had never seen him sleep entirely peacefully. “Yes.”

“He has a fever,” Christophe began carefully. “He may say things that—do not make any sense.”

“I understand,” Yuuri said. He understood what Christophe was saying, but he did not understand why the man seemed nervous about it.

The other thing that Yuuri did not understand was this: even though he ostensibly knew what was happening, the buzzing under his skin had not diminished. If anything, it had worsened, something roiling inside of him.

He went up the steps of the brick house just behind Christophe. A tall, thin woman with dark hair pulled into a tight bun opened the door even before they rang the bell.

“This is Katsuki?” she asked, looking him up and down.

“That’s—yes. Katsuki Yuuri. Err. Yuuri Katsuki.”

She nodded to Christophe. “You know where Viktor is.”

The lights in the house were dim, the halls quiet. Christophe led him from the foyer to the parlor. All the doors had been shut and the curtains drawn in quiet deference to Viktor, who lay quietly on the sofa, a blanket draped over his still form.

“Where is the doctor?” Yuuri asked Chris.

“Gone,” Chris said. “He said there was nothing more to be done.”

“Nothing,” Yuuri said, numbly. “I’m sorry, can you—“ He blinked back tears.

“Of course,” Christophe said. “We’ll be in the dining room, I think.”

The door clicked shut behind Christophe. Yuuri went to the bed first, cupping Viktor’s pale cheek in his hand. Ill, Giacometti had said, but Yuuri caught a glimpse of his veins, stained dark under the blanket, and when he brushed a thumb across Viktor’s lips, it came away red.

The anxious humming beneath his skin felt worse, more. He turned away for a moment, unable to look at Viktor’s still form for another second, and his eye caught on a sketchpad, dropped carelessly to the floor.

When he picked it up and turned it over to the open page, he stopped breathing. He stared at it for a long moment, the twisted structures rendered in graphite.

_ Oh, Viktor. Is this what you dream of? _

When he tore his eyes away, Viktor was watching him.

“You—“ Yuuri shook his head. “Viktor, Christophe said you were—ill,” he finished lamely. He let the sketchbook fall from his hands.

“Dying,” Viktor said. “I’m sure they said. Ahh, Yuuri, I haven’t seen your eyes do that in a long time.”

“Do what?” Yuuri said.

“Go all dark like that,” Viktor said. “Like a sky without stars. The first time we slept together—oh, but I’d almost forgotten until I saw the man in the café today.”

Yuuri knelt and picked up the sketchbook. “This is what you have nightmares about.”

“Yes,” Viktor said. “Is that home, Yuuri?”

Yuuri tried to sigh, but he’d run out of breath in the last few sentences. He inhaled again, trying to remember the appropriate rhythm. “It’s a very good likeness.”

“Thank you,” Viktor said. “Tell me, was it a lie, all this time? Why not kill me sooner?”

“No,” Yuuri said, and then tears were coming again. He swiped at them, frustrated in himself, in losing control of his human form so easily. “I didn’t know until this moment. I swear, I don’t—the others, I don’t talk to them much. I don’t know who did this, even.”

“Oh,” Viktor said. “So you did love me, then.”

“Yes,” Yuuri said. “Did you love me?”

“Of course,” Viktor said.

“Do you still?”

“I—“ Viktor propped himself up on an elbow and studied Yuuri. “I’m dying. I can hardly waste my last few hours being angry with you. Yes, I still love you.”

Yuuri sat on the coffee table to get closer to eye level with Viktor. He reached out to rest his hand on Viktor’s neck, and Viktor flinched and Yuuri froze. Then Viktor lifted his chin, baring his throat to Yuuri, and Yuuri reached out and ran a finger along the veins that had turned mottled under his skin.

Viktor swallowed; Yuuri felt the motion under his fingers. “Does it look so terrible?”

“Let me save you,” Yuuri said, not answering, sliding his hand up to wrap gently around Viktor’s throat. “Please.”

“How?” Viktor said. It hummed underneath Yuuri’s palm.

“What I am,” Yuuri said. “You might call something—I’m not quite an Elder God, you wouldn’t say, but—“

“An eldritch terror,” Viktor said dryly.

“Humans are so fragile,” Yuuri chose to ignore him. “A little bit of my blood, it can help flush the poison out.”

“What will it do to me?” Viktor asked. “Would it make me like you?”

“Would that be so terrible?” Yuuri shot back. Then he softened. “No. It might—you wouldn’t be quite human anymore, no. But you wouldn’t be anything much like me, either.”

“The—the people who live here,” Viktor said. “Are you going to hurt them?”

“No,” Yuuri said. “No! Why are you asking that?”

“Will you hurt them if I tell you no?”

“You’d die,” Yuuri said. It hurt to form the words. “You’d die before you’d become anything like me?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Viktor said. “But whatever happens tonight, swear to me—“

“I won’t touch them,” Yuuri said. “Mr. Giacometti or that woman or anyone else here.”

“Can I tell you the truth, Yuuri?” Viktor said, after a moment. He shut his eyes; he looked exhausted. After a moment, he opened them again.

“You think I’m a monster and you can’t bear the thought of becoming one,” Yuuri said, dully.

“I’m afraid,” Viktor corrected. “Those things I dream of—what will it do, if—“

“Oh,” Yuuri said. “I think it might make the dreams go away, actually. It’s not that you—it’s just that, humans aren’t built for the sort of transmission you picked up by accident. Or it might not go away entirely, but—it would be better.”

Viktor nodded, slowly, but said nothing. His eyes slipped shut again. Yuuri felt his pulse slowing under his fingers and he leaned in close.

“Darling,” Yuuri said. “Please let me save you.”

It was clearly a terrible effort for Viktor to open his eyes again, but he managed it. Yuuri cupped his face in his hands and he felt Viktor nod, finally.

“Thank you,” Yuuri whispered, and leaned in. The kiss tasted of blood.

\---

Viktor woke slowly. There was an awful coppery taste in his mouth, an ache deep into his bones and a lingering pounding at the base of his skull. Stripes of morning sunlight fell across his face, slipping through the cracks in the curtains. When he opened his eyes, he saw Yuri sitting in an armchair, angrily scratching his way through a mathematics exercise.

“Hello,” Viktor said.

Yuri jumped to his feet and shouted, “Viktor’s up!” Viktor grimaced at the sound and Yuri had time to flash him a vaguely apologetic look before the door opened. Yakov, Lilia, Christophe, and Yuuri, who hovered awkwardly to the side.

Viktor looked at Yuuri. His eyes looked as they usually did, brown and wide. Dark circles lingered under them. When Viktor made eye contact with him, he flushed and looked away.

“How do you feel?” Yakov asked.

“Not so terrible,” Viktor said.

“How did you sleep?” Yuuri asked, quietly, crossing the room towards him.

“Well,” Viktor said. Yuuri leaned in to brush his hair from his eyes and Viktor said, loud enough for them all to hear but meant just for Yuuri, “Actually, I had a good dream."

Relief and something unfathomable shone in Yuuri’s eyes. “Good,” Yuuri said.

“What time is it?” Viktor asked.

“Just past nine,” Yuuri said.

“Your shop,” Viktor said. “Have you been here all night?”

Yuuri looked startled, as though such a human concern hadn’t crossed his mind—and perhaps it hadn’t, because he said ruefully, “I suppose I have.”

“I seem unlikely to die at this point,” Viktor said. “You ought to sleep, at least.”

“Sleep,” Yuuri repeated, as though he’d never heard the word before.

“Sleep,” Viktor said. “Yes. A basic human need.”

“Of course,” Yuuri said. “You will—you will come see me, I hope.”

“The moment I am well enough,” Viktor promised.

Yuuri gripped his hand for a moment and then left. Viktor could feel Yuuri’s fingers turn to something else, hidden in Viktor’s palm, and the feeling of something that was not skin lingered with him long after Yuuri had gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you can, please leave a comment--they mean a lot.
> 
> I'm [catalists](http://catalists.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr or [@chromecatalists](https://twitter.com/chromecatalists/) on Twitter. Come say hi!


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